OS X Metal for OS X?

[antonis]

I will say to you guys this: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be ported to OSX natively thanks to some sort of new API... 😉

Thats all I can tell you right now about this 😉.

Haha, now that will be the day.
Imagine the iMac running The Witcher 3 with more fps than the high-end gaming PCs 😀
(one can dream, right? ) 😛

 

[koyoot]

Maybe it will not run faster(I have any knowledge about that), but for sure it will be within 10% of similar hardware on PC.

 

[MacBH928]

So what does this mean for OS X that Metal is out for it? What should we expect to see? Will games released in earlier times like CS:GO, Left4Dead, Diablo 3 work better or worse?

Mac hardware is weak for games any way

 

[antonis]

So what does this mean for OS X that Metal is out for it? What should we expect to see? Will games released in earlier times like CS:GO, Left4Dead, Diablo 3 work better or worse?

Mac hardware is weak for games any way

That is exactly my main concern too. Metal is definitely faster than the full openGL stack. But why should any s/w house invest on the effort (aka money) to adopt it if it is only for Mac ? Especially considering that right now the only devs that know metal are the ones that make apps for iOS.

 

[koyoot]

Only time has an answer for that, Antonis 😉.

 

[Eric5h5]

But why should any s/w house invest on the effort (aka money) to adopt it if it is only for Mac ?

Most games use a third-party engine (Unity, Unreal, etc.). So mostly you just need the major engine developers to support Metal, and they are.

--Eric

 

[jeanlain]

It's almost a given that the next Apple TV will run iOS apps, including games. If it's powerful enough (i.e. more than a handled device), it may bring more serious games to Metal.

 

[Exhale]

Most games use a third-party engine (Unity, Unreal, etc.). So mostly you just need the major engine developers to support Metal, and they are.

--Eric

This is mostly true in Mobile Phone games, due to the low budgets and lower competences involved. You do also see it a bit a in low budget computer and console games.

But the high budget / AAA market these engines are rather rare. And they're the ones that matter, since they make up the vast majority of sales and playtime.

 

[v3rlon]

This is mostly true in Mobile Phone games, due to the low budgets and lower competences involved. You do also see it a bit a in low budget computer and console games.

But the high budget / AAA market these engines are rather rare. And they're the ones that matter, since they make up the vast majority of sales and playtime.

Not true at all- many high end games are using Unity/Unreal/Cryengine type stuff. The cost of making a game is enough to make the major players look for ways to save time and money. The Witcher 3 is on the RedEngine3 which is available for OSX for example.

This saves costs for Cyberpunk 2077 coming soon. Go look at stuff coming from Unreal Engine 4 and Unity. Those aren't mobile games and script kiddy specials being highlighted - Gears of War, Tekken 7, Dead Island 2. Those are not low budget titles.

 

[Eric5h5]

It's not uncommon for AAA games to use an existing engine. It's also very relevant to this discussion, since when an engine is ported to OS X, games that use it are more likely to be ported as well, since the effort is reduced. See the various AAA Unreal Engine games on OS X such as Borderlands, BioShock, etc. Once the Source engine was ported, we got nearly all of Valve's games. Although it's not a guarantee...e.g., still no Wolfenstein The New Order on Mac despite using idTech 5. (Plenty of AAA games over the years used id's engines, and most of those games had Mac versions.)

So the point stands. If they can get major engine developers to use Metal, which they seem to be doing, then that automatically gets many software houses on board by default.

You do also see it a bit a in low budget computer and console games.

More than "a bit"; it's extremely common for indie games.

--Eric

 

[Aegelward]

If you think about it, the lack of support for Metal in OS X is quite obvious. Normally when Apple announce technologies like this they have a few demos and some game developers come on board saying how great this technology is, etc. And obviously, nobody came out.

But nada. Not even some Unreal Engine guys.

Everyone is focusing their effort on optimising for DX12 and Vulkan.

 

[jeanlain]

Huh, the UE4 guys did give a demo during the keynote. Epic, Unity and others were mentioned. We also know that EA has Frostbite working on Metal, the same for Crytek (on iOS).
And do you think they would annonce Metal support in OS X without actually doing it?

 

[koyoot]

If you think about it, the lack of support for Metal in OS X is quite obvious. Normally when Apple announce technologies like this they have a few demos and some game developers come on board saying how great this technology is, etc. And obviously, nobody came out.

But nada. Not even some Unreal Engine guys.

Everyone is focusing their effort on optimising for DX12 and Vulkan.

Well, maybe you don't know, but Epic Games, whom shown the Fortnite franchise at WWDC, are Unreal Engine guys 😉.

Jeanlain. In fact, Engines for iOS and OSX have only minor changes. IF you will look at Unity Engine, the core for rngine, the engine itself is the same for every platform. Only the tools are different, and capabilities of hardware.

 

[MacBH928]

Everyone is discussing which game engine will pick up Metal, but my question is WHAT can Metal do? And why would Apple release this when there is a new thing called Vulkan they can use instead?

Mac has hardware issues with gaming , not so much software

 

[koyoot]

Nope, it was always software issues. Look at it this way and explain to me. How come On the same Computer from Apple eg. iMac with R9 M290X in 1080p resolution in Blizzard games, you get 20% better performance on Windows through Bootcamp than on OSX, natively?

Lack of drivers, performance of the system, performance of the game client itself. All added up and you got worse perfroamance on THE SAME Hardware but differed by software.

 

[jeanlain]

The Mac hardware is fine for the vast majority of games. Just check the minimum requirements. Macs are above the average of PCs. Enthusiast gammer PCs are a niche.
AFAIK, Metal is simpler than Vulkan and existed before Vulkan (which actually doesn't exist yet). That's 2 good reason to support Metal on OS X.
I'm not sure what would prevent GPU divers makers from supporting Vulkan on the Mac. They do it on the PC without particular support from Microsoft (who are not blamed for supporting DX12 over Vulkan).

 

[MacBH928]

I realise this but the Mac hardware is so weak on the laptops side at least. I got a mac in 2008 and it could barely run Left4Dead which was a 2008 release. So a $1600 laptops can't run games released on the same year. Yes I did run it native on bootcamp.

Software is an additional issue.

 

[koyoot]

You judge gaming capabilities of Apple computers made in 2015 based on computer that was bought in 2008? O_O


😀

 

[MacBH928]

You judge gaming capabilities of Apple computers made in 2015 based on computer that was bought in 2008? O_O


😀

No, I am saying Apple always makes computers that are behind on the hardware specs. especially for gaming. Its common knowledge that you can always get a much higher spec on a PC for a lower price over Apple products.

I tried running Gamecube emulator on a Macbook Air 2011, I was surprised my 2008 macbook could run it much better. When I asked why, I was told because the air does not have a GPU . So maybe the hardware is even getting even weaker, and it shows with new macbooks.

It might be a different story with desktops and towers.

 

[koyoot]

You completely have no Idea what you are trying to judge. No offence, thats just an observation 😉.

I have 2012 year computer and completely have no problems with running games from present year on it. Why would I have them? And yes, it is a laptop. Mid 2012 MBP. And it was 1800$ machine.

 

[skaeroastro]

I have a late 2013 MBP with GT 750M and I can run minecraft on a 5G ramdisk with a 212-mod modpack at 4K resolution and maintain VSync (60fps). Yes, it's only Minecraft (albeit with 212 mods) and yes, I don't play graphics intensive titles or anything but saying that gaming on Macs does not work on notebooks just isn't a completely true statement. (Certain) Macs are capable gaming machines, but then again, people that buy Macs aren't usually gamers.


I know this isn't really relevant to the thread but just saying. Hell, if the games I sometimes play will someday take advantage of Metal, that would be great. What would be greater is if Autodesk brought Inventor Pro to OS X and used Metal 😛

 

[chrfr]

If you think about it, the lack of support for Metal in OS X is quite obvious. Normally when Apple announce technologies like this they have a few demos and some game developers

Adobe gave a Metal Illustrator demo in the "State of the Union" presentation.

 

[iBug2]

Blizzard just announced on the mac forums for WoW that they will support Metal for WoW in a future patch. This is going to be a great year for Mac gaming.

 

[JaguarGod]

I have to say that this does give me a bit of hope for the future. I'd like to speak to my old partner who helped with my Mac racing sim and see if we could tinker with it for a future update.

 

[Irishman]

Everyone is discussing which game engine will pick up Metal, but my question is WHAT can Metal do? And why would Apple release this when there is a new thing called Vulkan they can use instead?

Mac has hardware issues with gaming , not so much software

Vulkan won't be shippable for 2 more years, from what I've read. Why wait, when gains from implementing Metal can be seen now?